This special topic poll, fielded October 8-11, 1998, sought
respondents' views on the upcoming November 2, 1998, congressional
elections. Respondents were asked for their opinions of President Bill
Clinton and his handling of the presidency and foreign affairs, as
well as their views on the United States Congress and the state of the
nation's economy. Those queried were asked which party they intended
to cast their votes for in the congressional elections, which party
they felt was better equipped to handle our nation's problems, and how
likely it was that they would vote in November. Given what respondents
knew about the Monica Lewinsky issue, they were asked for their
opinions on the future of Clinton's second term. They were also asked
for their views on the United States House of Representatives' recent
vote to hold hearings into whether Clinton should be impeached, how
their congressional representative's stance on that issue had
influenced their electoral decisions, and how concerned they were with
Clinton's behavior. Background information on respondents includes
age, sex, race, education, political party, political orientation,
voter registration and participation history, and family income.

(1) The data are provided as an SPSS portable
file. (2) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR staff. ICPSR
is distributing the data and documentation for this collection in
essentially the same form in which they were received. When
appropriate, hardcopy documentation has been converted to
machine-readable form and variables have been recoded to ensure
respondents' anonymity. (3) The codebook is provided as a Portable
Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe
Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software,
such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy
of the Acrobat Reader is provided through the ICPSR Website on the
Internet.